Psychologist Toshio Kawai has an interesting hypothesis. We may, he says in an article written for the Asahi Shimbun’s Globe, be entering an age when “becoming an adult will not be necessary.” What makes an adult an adult? Autonomy, the ability to stand on ...

In addition to their regular mixture of celebrity gossip and scandals mixed with practical advice for readers — such as how to quit smoking or winning pachinko techniques — the weeklies also treat their readers to snippets of Japanese history. Flash (July 28) devoted ...

‘I hope,” read an email from a colleague boarding an Osaka-bound shinkansen in Tokyo last week, “nobody sets himself on fire.” Black humor. There’s nothing funny about a man immolating himself on a crowded train, killing himself and another and injuring 26 — but ...

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‘June 28, 1997. I ceased being me. It was the day I was expelled forever from the world of sunshine. Up to then, I had nonchalantly spent my days unaltruistically, each passing day framed by the next as in a film, until the day ...

The trouble with machines is, they do things better than we do. “Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth,” said the third-century B.C. Greek inventor Archimedes, lever in hand. The Earth has been moving ever since, ever faster. Still, ...

Schadenfreude, a word of German derivation, is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people.” A more succinct definition would be “malicious glee.” “Malicious glee” aptly describes Yukan Fuji’s coverage ...

If only there was an island somewhere … Who hasn’t thought that at one time or another? A quiet, remote place, far from the mindless bustle and endless cares of the world, where you can grow your own food, build your own house, be ...

“On any given evening, you can see noisy quarrels between club staff and customers outside the local police box,” attorney Katsuyuki Aoshima tells Asahi Geino (May 2), adding, “The police treat these as civil claims between the shop and the customer, and won’t get ...

“Have you ever heard the roar of a jet fighter?” Kiyokatsu Kikuchi has. “No words can describe it. When they’re flying directly over my house it feels like my head’s being split open.” For 40 years this has been going on. Kikuchi, 67, lives ...

“How would I describe Kabukicho? Frankly, I’m not sure,” popular author Hirokatsu Azuma was quoted as saying in the now-defunct monthly Gendai magazine back in January 1999. “If you say it’s a scary place, you could be right; and if you say it’s a ...

Is crime justified in the service of good? It’s an ancient question. “Thou shalt not kill,” says the Bible — war in God’s service being an implicit exception. Then there’s Don Quixote, lover of justice, upholder of virtue, who founders on the impossibility of ...

The sharp downturn in business at McDonald’s — which has thrived for most of the past 44 years in Japan — has got everybody talking. This past January alone, revenues at existing outlets, the company announced, had fallen year-on-year by a whopping 38.6 percent, ...